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Transdermal Strip Removal

It’s certainly not unusual for transdermals to go bad (and I’ll even go so far as to propose that most will eventually fail and need removal), but this is definitely one of the most aggressive removals I’ve seen. That said, I have to admit that the stitched up version looks pretty happy in comparison to most mutli-transdermal removals. Procedure (but not the original transdermals) by Howie/Lunacobra.

I know I say this all the time, but seriously — any modification you get, be prepared to eventually remove it or worse. That doesn’t mean don’t do it… just understand the risks involved and decide whether it’s worth it for you… Nothing is guaranteed to last forever, and in fact, most things are guaranteed not to last forever.

Wow, I’m thinking about transdermal work and I’ve always known the risk of removal being needed but its another thing to actually SEE the removal. Makes you really think whats worth it to you! I’m sure I’ll still follow through, but I’m glad this has made me think a little more on it as well.

And along with Malice Alice, I would also like to know how old these word.

that’s brutal.
and #13, i wondered the same thing. who knew. but the implants looks pretty big on the bottom, not that much room between them, so maybe removing the whole strip was about the same, a little less drama.

The transdermals were about 2 years old, the few that were damaged were the ones that I tended to bump more often and began to show signs of rejection about six months ago, I believe through a combination of mechanical pressure and stress (it had been a tuff year). I decided to have them removed in a single strip mainly for the neatness and severity of the scar. The tightness lasted for about 2weeks after the procedure and was noticeable mainly when I laughed so mini face lift yes.

I think you’re making an assumption that there was an infection in the first place. While the implants are obviously quite irritated and starting to reject (at least a few), that doesn’t automatically translate into an infection.

To answer people’s questions, you cant just remove the implants, what happens with transdermals is the skin forms around it, pretty much making it a part of your skin. You do have to cut in that far and that much to get them out.

Alright…crappy removal job, crappy implant to begin with. We know who took it out (I’m so surprised)…

And of course, we’ll never know who the fuck put it in.

And if you ever wanted to know why transdermal implants are STILL so dangerous after all these years, you need look no further than the fact that the industry has an internal protection mechanism—shitty practitioners are protected by all of their collegues, whether they’re liked or not. And who ultimately suffers?

Christ o_O I hope the skin is sewn edge to edge and not folded over at all, or you may get some cysts from ingrown hairs in there. Unless all the folicles by the removal area were damaged by that..pretty brutal procedure.

#41 You can just remove the implants, there is absolutely no need to take out all the tissue around them. I’ve done many transdermal removals, and they never require cutting off any skin. Simply opening the skin up and cutting the scar tissue that has grown through the pieces enough to make it let go of the implants and pull them out. This was total overkill and there was no real reason to remove that much tissue, or most likely any tissue.

There are pictures on _Stigmata_’s page of where I took our a transdermal in the center of his forhead, in the center of his solid blackwork tattoo, and the scar is almost invisible, and he hasn’t had it tattooed over or anything.

Just to clarify ( please also note that transdermals IN THE SCALP IS NOTHING LIKE IN THE FOREHEAD THE TISSUE IS VERY DIFFERENT ) – the implants were removed along with such a large amount of skin due to the fact that the owner of the transdermals Jake had damaged hair follicles. If i had removed them in a more traditional fashion, such as cutting around each transdermal only slightly he would have been left with more random looking dashes where the transdermals were. What we cannot see in these photos is how damaged the skin was all along the base of the transdermal, most of the skin removed was damaged tissue. So in doing the proceedure this way, not only were we able to remove all the damaged tissue we were able to leave him with a nice looking, even scar that was only one line. Instead of having 5 dashes on his head, however thin those dashes were they would still result in the hair not growing through these 5 dashes. I think we could all agree and most importantly Jake the one who’s head that is in question here is more happy with the result that he got. One long thin scar that gives the man his hair back!
Say whatever you like about it, but don’t forget the most important thing, that the procedure was a sucess, in so far as JAKE is very happy with what was done and how it all healed up, go to his page , ask him if you like :)

wow… now im sure from this comment i will get a bunch of hate mail from howies cult following but that is overkill. there was no need to do all that. maybe it made it easier and he had some crazy idea on why he did it that way. i’ll admit there are some mod artists out there that should not be doin shit to begin with but then there is howie. im dyin to see what kind of mess this turns into now. as you all recall the scar he did on that one guy that lukas and saamp had to remove and fix. there is no way anyone can say this was the best way to remove those and necessary to do. I mean come on howie…are you forgettin your not really a surgeon or were you goin for shock value on this procedure. i’ve had 3 removed and did not need anything so severe to have them removed. you look like you were tryin to play a game with yourself on how far and how much you could do to this poor guy. what was so hard about just making one long incision from piece to piece and just doin that. why remove so much tissue in the first place. I have seen some good work from you but damn…stuff like this makes me question what the hell you were thinking and why you did it like that. I mean im no dr so maybe you had a reason behind doin it this way. Then again your no dr either and I look forward to our death match in vegas durin APP. :)

if i shaved my head i would be worried about a few tiny bald spots as well. what was i thinking.:p I have seen howies sutures and i am positive he could have done it to avoid any bald spots. His suture work is not to be questioned. It was just wow…thats alot of shit to remove

I think we need to remember that Howie is not completely responsible, Jake did opt to have this method done over others (as stated in his own comment if anybody cared to read through them [Comment 21]). I think it’s kind of ridiculous to sit here and argue which procedure would have been better or more effective based on 6 pictures. Still, I’m sure plenty of people will read both Jake’s comment (21) and Howie’s (51) and say they were wrong.

I had a row of transdermals done by the same artist as Jake and i wished i’d had my transdermals removed this way because even though i have small scars there is really obvious hard scar tissue underneath them and i would have preferred a single scar with the damanged tissue removed.

I might not have opted for such a wide incision but theoretically i think it would have been a better method than individual removal with hap hazard scars.

At least this time it’s not being silently tolerated, but actually discussed. And honestly kids, the pictures above are exactly what you should expect to see when someone who has exactly no meaningful medical experience at all does a bonafide surgical procedure.

At least the motherfucker wore gloves. I guess that’s something.

Now, all of that said, there are of course practitioners out there who are also not medical professionals, but DO have meaningful medical experience, and are very, very good at what they do. Actually I can only think of two. Shannon can recommend at least one. :)

BTW, if anyone wants to grow some balls and name the practitioner responsible for this fiasco in the first place, send it along to yttrx@yttrx.net, and I’ll happily out the bitch on my blog. Full anonymity is of course always guaranteed, and I need to get the same answer from at least three individuals before outing.

yttrx – You are missing the point entirely; transdermals will almost ALL eventually have this type of problem, no matter who they put them in. The point is that if people want to have transdermals, they have to accept that there is a very good chance they will at some point in the future require removal.

Shannon: I think I have the point quite clear. It is what it has always been—that some practitioners practice the medicine of destruction (metal mohawks KNOWN to NEVER work, KNOWN to be EXTREMELY dangerous—and done, as always for the ego and the buck)…while other practitioners have to clean up their fucking mess by actually applying what they know to HEAL a client.

I know you have a lot of mixed feelings on the subject, but I don’t. Stupidity is stupidity, and it has nothing to do with who’s friends with whom.

And btw, from a few years ago when I asked an actual doctor, in this case a thoracic surgeon, what he thought of metal mohawks (posted elsewhere as well, at the time):

“There’s a great difference between an injury between the dermis and epidermis on someone’s back, or leg, where the difference between the two is generally easy to detect and work with; and even injury by amateur implant to the dermis itself in these areas is not the same thing as injury to the cranial dermis, particularly on the forehead or near the eyesockets where even highly qualified medical professionals can make a mistake that proves fatal.”

But as usual, practitioners are smarter than people who actually went to school for 14 years. Bleh.

yttrx – The fact is that many of the things we do for recreation and personal fulfillment are dangerous and even deadly. I’m not about to tell people that they shouldn’t get metal mohawks any more than I am about to tell people they shouldn’t go rock climbing, race cars, or any other dangerous games they want to play. I happen to like dangerous games, but I also have a pretty good idea of what the dangers are, and I won’t play unless I have that information or am in the process of creating it through the adventure (a la my experiences with the magnetic implants).

For me, the goal is helping people assess the level of danger and allowing them to decide for themselves how they want to self-evolve and self-define, rather than to outright tell people not to do something because it either doesn’t last long-term or can go bad in some people. I’ve done plenty of dangerous and life-threatening things, and I am thankful that I have done them… hell, so have you. I hope you’re thankful that you did them as well, and I’m guessing for the most part you’re not a guy that’s riddled with regrets, and that’s learned from those adventures.

As you know, the only person that I know of to have serious complications (as in where their life was in danger due to erosion and infection of the skull itself) from a cranial transdermal implant has to date refused to go on record about it. If there are more buried away, well, then where does the blame lie? I’ll say it again and again: it’s a lot more important to share stories of complications than stories of success.

(And the whole doctor argument is, in my opinion, totally irrelevant until doctors actually become willing to do analogous procedures and have experience in them.)

I’ve argued over this kind of shit over and over, but it seems that most people are too stupid to give a fuck. You can search back on spikesandstuds’ page for the last bullshit involving Howie. I’ve run out of energy at this point.

It seems people’s problems with this at this point are more to do with their own personal issues with the practitioner than the actual procedure. I think it was a good choice to do it this way, and I think the fact that the person getting it done is happy with it speaks much louder than anyone else’s opinion about it.

one of the dumbest cop out for comments on modblog in general is when people respond with blah blah blah. atleast the guy is happy that had it done. thats fine..if its true but the whole point was howie went way to far over what he actually had to do making it much more unsafe then it would have been anyways. there was no reason to go that far and remove that much. I have no problems with howie as a person. I would have said the same thing if i seen a dr do this that had 40 years experience. Bottom line was this was overkill. Transdermals were never a good idea to begin with.

A long time ago I met a gurl who had her navel done by a doctor, he just did a straight vertical incision on her navel, then put a banana inside the incision (he didn’t unscrew it) and then stitched it up… weird but funny :)

I know Jake (Silicun) better than most, and I have seen this whole project from the initial placement right through to the now healed removal. (looking great by the way). Jake is better educated than most on the risks of these proceedures and had them done by practitioners with experience in this field. I don’t think any of you can say that this could have been done safer or with less trauma without seeing it first hand.

I don’t have an agenda here- I don’t love or hate Howie, or the un-named original artist. Jake is happy with the outcome and He was aware of the risks involved from the begining.

I believe Shannon put these photos up to educate people on what may be neccecary to reverse this type of proceedure, Let’s not turn this into a shit flinging fest.

I dont know much about transdermal implants, just a little I have read here.

Maybe it says it all when doctors would not get involved in this type of procedure. Their job is to heal not to carry out procedures that could lead to a life threatening situations.

The steel rods & screws they have to insert into (like my mother had 2 years ago) was to allow her to walk not for some cosmetic reasons.

These procedures it seems to me are carried out by people with very little medical training. Sometimes im sure the venue would not be as sterile as an operating theatre.

This procedure carried out above is very severe and so much could have gone wrong with it.

It goes without saying people are going to continue to push mods to the very extreme, as people want to look unique, outragous, provide conversation openers & mainly their inner body switches need flipping in some way. Non of these reasons I disagree with its their bodies & their risks.

I wonder if this had been record and shown to every client before they had transdermals & told there is every chance this may happen to you, they would actually go through with it.

Seriously, it’s amazing how names of practioners who do crappy work are always hidden. In case of scar removal some months ago the original work was by Howie and his name was hidden as well, though of course in this case not, so we can see how great he is and all the good (??) work he does.
This hypocritical, lame and irresponsible policy of hiding the names of practioners when they do bad work and of course revealing their names when it’s ok (not sure in this case though) really pisses me off..

I’m sorry Jack but you’re wrong, Oscar did NOT have sufficient experience to be executing this work… i know this because i had transdermals done by him a few days before Jake.
While i was happy with the answers he was giving me prior to having the work done there was alarm bells going off during and after the procedure which is why i made sure he removed mine before he left the country.

I don’t normally get into this shit because i don’t want to upset people and prevent them from going about their work but i don’t believe i’m wrong doing anyone by saying the aforementioned.
Oscar accepted that he is capable of making mistakes and that he in fact did in my case so it’s really no surprise to me that Jake has had this experience.
With all of that being said, fuck transdermals! IMHO they won’t work.. unless your name is wolverine.

Shannon: Indeed, ive done some very dangerous things, and indeed I have no regrets at all. A lot of them were VERY stupid.

But I have to call you out on one thing: if your goal really was to educate clients about the dangers and risks of these kinds of procedures, you would be telling everyone all about what people like Howie and Haworth (and a dozen others) habitually do. Instead these people are guarded as if they have some kind of intrinsic value to them beyond helping a bunch of punkass kids look “cool”. /grumpy-old-man

If you want to help, to really, really help, call these people out. Name the motherfuckers, and tell people what they’ve done.

“Jake is better educated than most on the risks of these proceedures and had them done by practitioners with experience in this field”
what kind of idiotic comment is that. a comment made by someone up the guys ass or close friend in the pics. if he knew as much as you say he does about shit like this. he would agree it was overkill too. where was this done at anyways///what country?

Listen, I don’t hate Howie specifically. He’s just one person in a long line of practitioners who arrogantly think they know better than people who have studied medicine for years, and perform dangerous invasive procedures on people strictly for the cash. I have no “issues” with him as a person, so please don’t use that bullshit copout.

Out of all the comments and initial topic of conversation, Shannon i agree – “the stitched up version looks pretty happy in comparison to most mutli-transdermal removals”
Really all to their own i guess but as everyone is different, every piercing, implant, body mod, their healing process, their decisions for the initial procedure, then ultimately to remove is their own decision, even with a qualified medical practitioner (whom are all trained differently) would always do what their patient prefers especially when there are obviously more options on how to approach this situation. Ultimately the only person who should care is the patient ie silicun, congrats to you, looks like the healing has been excellent.

Star tripper is a fool. you dont understand shit. My problem was not with howie. how clear can i make it. I could care less about the guy that had it done either. My problem is with the way this was “fixed” as all you people up his ass seem to bow down to howie and kiss his ass. There was no need for how he went about doin it. It was overkill. If you cant understand my point on that you are fools or in denial.

how is it insulting for me to say what he did was way overboard. why is it your defending him and kissin his ass. I never insulted this guy and wonder if your just crazy and seein shit or what. Im questioning all this dumb shit people say with nothing to back it up. dont make your mistake in readin what i wrote and try to turn it into im throwin insults. im simply sayin maybe the thing was done wrong, maybe he fucked up and made it worse. but if howie knew as much as some of you fools seem to think with no background on this shit other then you suck his ass for scene points. Whenever people obviously know something might have been done wrong and feel too stupid to agree they always take the cop out and do one of two things.1. say well atleast blah blah is happy and thats all that matters. @. twist up anyones words that has a point and try to make them look like the bad guy. If i had a problem with howie I would easily say it. I thought i made it very clear i had a problem with his way of “fixing” this previous problem. It was not necessary and made the removal far more dangerous then it had to be. can you not grasp that concept in your mind? Or you gonna say something like im just angry from not bein held enough as a baby? Or maybe i listen to too much rap music and avoid what was said initially.

Admittedly I know nothing about transdermals, or their removal, but I have seen Jake recently and his head is looking great. He has a thin line of scar tissue, which is straight and even and looks a Hell of a lot better than 5 random bald patches would have.

Howie is an irresponsible, dangerous practitioner, and so is haworth, and jessie makes shit jewelery and doesnt know what the fuck hes doing. I can think of four practitioners in the WORLD who arent complete fucking idiots who should be incarcerated for what theyve done, and NONE of them have been mentioned in this thread.

You have a problem with it? Then why dont you come down to the horseshoe bar on 7th street and avenue B in New York City on Friday, March 23rd, between 6:30 and 8pm, when I will be holding court. You’ll see the orchids on my left arm and the very expensive glasses on my face.

There, now no one has to be behind a keyboard. I’ll be there. I’ll of course report the very next day about how many of you morons show up to tell me what you think. (or take a swing at me, either way)

You’ll see them on http://www.yttrx.net later this evening after I post what I’ve learned from a couple of anonymous sources who have been reading this thread. And just so its said here (as well as yttrx.net), I mean people who are professional practitioners, not people who occasionally do favors for friends, or rig for suspensions, etc.

Yttrx/Inza – The reason that I don’t personally think that it’s worthwhile to focus on individual practitioners is because I am far more concerned with people understanding that there are major (but manageable) risks with ALL practitioners. I worry a lot when individual practitioners are demonized, because it gives the false impression that you can go to someone else and be significantly safer.

Yes, of course some practitioners are safer than others. Some are cleaner than others. Some are faster than others. Some are willing to push the boundaries farther than others. Etc. But the fact is that the core underlying risks are not that different from person to person.

_Stigmata_ – I realize that you don’t agree with the way this was done, and you have some valid points, but I don’t think it’s so one-sided. I strongly believe that this is how most doctors would have done this procedure (especially if the goal was to restore the hair follicles, which by definition REQUIRES a larger removal), and if I was in Jake’s shoes, this is almost exactly the procedure that I would use for removal as well.

The reason that I don’t personally think that it’s worthwhile to focus on individual practitioners is because I am far more concerned with people understanding that there are major (but manageable) risks with ALL practitioners.

That’s true, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong to point out practitioners who do messy, unsafe work. When Taco Bell has a rat infestation in a store or an E. Coli outbreak, it’s released to the public because people have a right to know how safe the goods and services they want to spend their money on are.

The fact that there are safety issues en masse within the industry shouldn’t be a reason to protect the identities of individuals who do sub-standard work, regardless of their popularity or “importance.”

Basically, the cults of personality that develop in this community need to be challenged and destroyed as much as possible, because it seems like a lot of people are afraid to come forward with precautionary tales, lest they be hounded by X-practitioner’s sycophants and acolytes. If the industry really wants to grow and flourish, the low-hanging fruit needs to be eliminated, and that can’t happen when people keep their mouths shut.

Im no dr but im just curious what reason there was for him to not make just one big slit up the center and fish lip style cut the lil extra flaps around where the pieces were. so there were not those lil bald spots that everyone seems to be focused on. it would have done the same thing would it not have? I dont have pics from parts of my removals but i got it on video to show you more what i mean if you get confused. i should send you a copy anyways. its kinda funny to watch these fuckewrs come out in the first place. especially when the dr starts making the big gaping wound sing like homer simpson. I fully understand pushin the limits and taking risks. then again i see some things done that didnt need to be. thats why i am so bothered by it. i need to get you the video. but it comes to a sudden stop when the guy filming got very ill when my head was opened up so he dropped the camera and the film ends hahaha

“Im no dr but im just curious what reason there was for him to not make just one big slit up the center and fish lip style cut the lil extra flaps around where the pieces were.
”

you don’t have to be a doctor to see that this method of removal would have uneven tension on the wound and leave a terrible result. Think about it, in actuality you would be making the surface area of the edges larger.

You don’t need to be a dr, but you must have used a craft knife in your time, I know small round shapes are more difficult to make than a long straight one.what cuts do you prefer to make when you’re after a neat result?

I’m pretty lucky where I live (Queensland Australia) in that it’s legal to have synthetic plastics or metals implanted under the skin in registered studios. It’s also legal to scar as well as pierce and tattoo.
Why they have legalised this, is that the standards you have to maintain to be a registered studio, are the same Australian national standards used by day surgeries and dentists. Where this was done will be able to tell you what load for the day that the gauze was sterilised in.

“Im no dr but im just curious what reason there was for him to not make just one big slit up the center and fish lip style cut the lil extra flaps around where the pieces were.
”

A logical thinker would see that this method of removal would have uneven tension on the wound and leave a terrible result. Think about it, in actuality you would be making the surface area of the edges larger.

You don’t need to be a dr, but you must have used a craft knife in your time, I know small round shapes are more difficult to make than a long straight one.what cuts do you prefer to make when you’re after a neat result?

I’m pretty lucky where I live (Queensland Australia) in that it’s legal to have synthetic plastics or metals implanted under the skin in registered studios. It’s also legal to scar as well as pierce and tattoo.
Why they have legalised this, is that the standards you have to maintain to be a registered studio, are the same Australian national standards used by day surgeries and dentists. Where this was done will be able to tell you what load for the day that the gauze was sterilised in.

I had a transdermal implanted almost a month ago now, and going into it I KNEW there is pretty much little to no chance of it ever fully healing. I thought about it for a long time, and I after years still wanted one, so I got one, what kind of luck am I having with it? Well, as of now it is leaning to one side slightly.

But I am not going to blame that on the artist, the artist who put it in did an amazing job, it’s quite known that transdermals don’t work out perfectly.

I think people are too quick to blame an artist for how some things turn out (somtimes the cause is justified, and I think we should know who the original artists were so we can make educated experiences based on their previous practices).

I don’t see anything wrong with any procedure as long as the individual recieving the procedure is completely educated and informed on any risks and about different options he/she has.

Shannon, or anyone else: are we assuming this implant was a sub standard to begin with? I don’t see how we/they/anyone can make that assumption based solely on the one close up picture. It looks to me like a standard rejecting and irritated transdermal implant. Why are people assuming that the original artist did shody work?

there could have been more contributing factors as to why the transdermals were rejecting besides bumping them. And at the severity of the rejection, from first look, it can almost be ruled that the pieces were put in the wrong layer. When will people actually start to seek out others to work with and get at least a firm understanding instead of jumping into proceedures such as implants “head-first”? That is the whole reason have not fully begun to do them myself.

That being said, the implants are gone, there were a few different methods on how the removal could have been done. Even though it was a bit extreme removing a “belt” of tissue to get them out, what’s done is done. I just want to see the healed product.